Rocky Mountain Women in Business Series Video: Leslie Grotjohn

Speaker 1 (00:10):

My name is Leslie Grotjohn. My business is here in Billings, Montana, and it's called One Sweet Bite. What I do is I make cake pops for weddings, birthdays. I have five different coffee shops I'm in. I am in Poly Food Basket. I do some markets around town. So yeah, I just make tons of different kinds of cake pops and sell them all around the town. I am a stay-at-home mom. I have, my oldest is 12, she's my stepdaughter. So she actually, she was in competitive cheer and this was super random. I was never a baker, never really enjoyed being in the kitchen till I was in my early twenties. So when she was in competitive cheer, we actually had to do a bake sale and I was like, I bet cake pops would sell really well! Well, they did so good, and then probably the following, it was probably three months later, I was like, you know what?

(01:20):

I think I could do something with it. And I just randomly decided to start my own little business. And I also have my son's four and he was three at the time. And then my daughter, she's about to be three and she was two. And I was like, I just need something for myself instead of just being a stay-at-home mom all the time, which I love, but sometimes you just need to have something of your own to get out to talk to people. So that's what got me started. It was super random and inspired me. I guess the skillset I have I think are, I'm just, I get my heart set on something and I really want to see it through. I want to, I guess, have my business thrive. I don't want to fail. Yeah, because a lot of businesses you see a lot fail and I don't want to fail.

(02:18):

And it's also like you have to make sure you take the baby steps first and not just jump in super fast. Another way to make your business just not last. So the resources and tools I use, I really had to figure out on my own. I researched a lot to get all the licenses are very hard. I made sure, I definitely took advantages of all the marketing. Markets in particular. When I first started, I did a lot of them back to back to back just to get my name out there. And those are very, with something that's baking, the markets are really hard because you can't do them so far in advance. You only have maybe two weeks to be able to really do it. But I definitely, I took advantage of those. I tried to talk, some of my friends that have their own businesses, I asked them for a lot of advice because yeah, it's like where do you begin when you don't know what to do for all these licenses?

(03:23):

And especially when I got my wholesale license, that one was really difficult to do on my own. So yeah, just using the internet, using people around me that have some experience, I'd say that's what I used. Oh, absolutely. So the challenges that I face, I think it's just time management, learning how to juggle having a family and making time for yourself. But then also you want to take on a lot of the opportunities you get. But then sometimes it can be very overwhelming, especially with this season going on right now, this is definitely my busiest season and it's hard to manage the holidays and things with your kids, but then giving up time. So that's probably been the hardest with my business because there's times where I really want, I feel like I'm not doing enough and then I'm like, well, maybe my business isn't doing as good as I thought it was, but it's because the season's slower.

(04:25):

But then again, then when I'm really busy I'm like, oh, I wish it would slow down a little bit. So that's it. The time management, I would say is the hardest. I would say my advice would be you have to know when you're kind of over your limit, where you know that you're pushing it too hard, you don't want to wear yourself out, which I feel like I did that starting off. I really just wanted to do so well. I totally burnt myself out because I did so much, so fast. But, so I guess just know where you need to cut things off and get the ball rolling again if you want. So it just, mine hasn't completely stopped. I'll have slow times, I'll have really busy times. So yeah, I wish right now I'm like, I wish there was five of me. I just can't.

(05:18):

I have a hard to it. I'm doing it all myself. It is. You just don't have enough time in a day to get it all done, but you figure it out. The community as a whole, Billings has been great with accepting everything of mine and people were very great about letting me know what they like and I guess letting me grow my business. When I first started my very first market, someone was like, I would love to hook you up with this person. See if you can get your cake pots in there, which was super helpful. So Billings has been great with letting my business kind of just expand. And then, I mean, I have a great support system. I have a great family. Everyone has been nothing but supportive at home and everyone has ate a lot of cake pops. Trying them for me, sampling them all.

(06:17):

And it's awesome. This weekend I had my sister help me kind of make a little video of some new things that I'm wanting to pursue with my business and everyone is willing to help me in whatever way I need. And then also, I mean, my friends, I do have a lot of friends now because I was in a mom group and a lot of those friends now are doing little businesses and they've given me lots of advice on how to go about running your own business by yourself and learning how to market yourself and put yourself all the stuff you need on Facebook and Instagram and the website and all that stuff. They've all been, everyone in my little community has been wonderful. When I met with Kassi last week or the week before, she was so helpful. After we went over everything that I was going to or what she asked me about with my business, she gave me lots of advice and was amazing.

(07:19):

I do want to take a next step in my business. And so I was just telling her what people were asking me, and she gave me this amazing advice. And so I'm super excited. When it comes to being profitable. At the beginning of your business, you're just spending and spending because just to get started now, I definitely am profitable. I think this summer was a lot slower. I think just in the summer months, people are more like they want to have ice cream and snow cones and stuff like that, so it was a lot slower. So I didn't make a ton in the summer, but I have never been good when it comes to money and numbers. That part is not where I, is my strong suit. And my husband gets very mad at me because he says I need to definitely do better. It's hard to do that on top of running a business.

(08:18):

You're like, you think it's just all going to work out. You're like, it'll figure itself out. Yeah. So I'm definitely profitable, I dunno how much yet, but yeah, I'm working on it. That's a very tough spot for me. I was never good at numbers. I was never good at anything like that. It's, it's not my strong suit, so it's just working. It's a work in progress. Everyone has been so great about being so supportive of what I do and loving what I do. When I first started, I remember when I first started, which my husband will kill me, but he was, because I was like, I'm going to have a cake pop business. He was like, what if you don't sell any? And I was like, oh, I'm going to sell some. And then my first market, I completely sold out, so he was shocked. I just remember from the beginning, I was just amazed that I actually did this and people were taking it so well. I don't know if there's one particular, it's just been kind of, the whole journey has been amazing. Just everyone being so supportive of what I do and liking what I do. This is something I never would've imagined in a million years that I would be doing. I was not the type at all. But yeah, so I'm like, there isn't just one particular thing that's happened. It's been everything. It's been great.